Joy and Danger Await in First Trailer for How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

Dragons can find love too, you know. They aren’t just gold-hoarding, lair-dwelling beasts meant for some Arthurian knight to best with a big sword. Sometimes they are cute and befriend Vikings, and usher in one of the most successful animated film franchises in recent memory. Well, in the first official trailer for How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Toothless finds love, Hiccup sports an awesome beard and a new evil presents itself to the miniature Viking empire that Hiccup leads.

Toothless, the only member of the Night Fury species known to the Vikings, encounters a mysterious white dragon in some moon-lit woods and, for Toothless, it is love at first sight. This mystery dragon is known as a Light Fury—more or less, a pallet swap of Toothless—and she holds the key to an alternate dragon world that Toothless and Hiccup venture into. At the same time that Toothless falls in love, an evil dragon hunter enters the mix and is destined on conquering Toothless—the only type of dragon that he has yet to conquer.

The trailer itself is striking in both its imagery and tone. Visually, it is both bombastic and microscopically beautiful. Vistas pop with breadth and color whilst the interior of a tavern radiates with a fire-lit warmth that is near-palpable. The magically realistic world of the Vikings ebbs into full-blown fantasy imagery when the alternate dragon world is introduced, and in that world, glowing purples and bright, swelling oranges give it its own sense of place, of life. Furthermore, the introduction of the dragon hunter washes the trailer in hues of orange, red and black. The presence of evil and the threat of death quite literally manifest themselves in the film’s visual aesthetic. It is both beautiful and dangerous. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is shaping up to be the most visually daring entry in the series.

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World soars its way into theaters on March 1, 2019, with a star-studded cast, including everyone from Jay Baruchel to Cate Blanchett. Check out the brand-new trailer below.